


The Two Hundred and Fifth Time

by SeaSpectre160



Series: Whumptober 2019 [17]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bleeding Out, Fan theory, Gen, Kendra Saunders's past lives, Stabbing, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25166134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaSpectre160/pseuds/SeaSpectre160
Summary: WHUMPTOBER 2019 PROMPT #23: BLEEDING OUT“Come now, My Love. You didn’t think I wouldn’t follow you all the way from Harmony Falls, did you?”“What… the hell… are you… ta- ta- talking… about?!” Every syllable seemed to take twice as much effort as the last. The ever-growing pool of blood told her that her time would be upverysoon.
Relationships: Carter Hall/Kendra Saunders, Khufu Maat Kha-Tar/Chay-Ara
Series: Whumptober 2019 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502108
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	The Two Hundred and Fifth Time

**Author's Note:**

> I feel that Kendra is a character that really got shortchanged by the writers. Think about it: She has lived 206 lives prior to this one, and therefore potentially has the memories and experiences of 206 other women locked inside her mind, just waiting to come out. The writers could have done so much more with her instead of basing practically her entire character development on the men in her life. While she had some good moments (like her firm, no-nonsense “My answer will _always_ be ‘No’.” to Savage in 1x05), nearly all of her character moments were about her relationships with Ray and Carter. One of her few subplots to _not_ feature those relationships in any way, shape, or form was back in 1x04, when she was training with Sara to help her control her hawk-warrior side, and that turned out to focus more on Sara’s own development (which is still important, but couldn’t they have done it in a way that didn’t sacrifice Kendra’s development in the process?). It’s especially annoying when, in 1x06, she goes out of her way to say she’s not looking for a romantic relationship right now or anytime soon, yet the following episode has her declaring that she needs Ray and ends with them making out.
> 
> In brief: nearly all of Kendra’s story utterly flunked the Bedschel Test, and the writers should have done better by her. The potential for it was there, and then it was wasted.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ or any of its characters.

_Wednesday, April 23 rd, 1958_

Kendra Barlow Pennington was putting away the freshly-washed breakfast dishes when she felt it. She’d just been finishing up her morning chores, ready to head to her part-time receptionist job at a local automobile manufacturer’s office (the closest she could get to her former job as a shipyard welder since the war ended). Matt had already gone off to work at his father’s company, so she was home alone when that horrible chill ran down her spine and she became almost certain that someone was watching her.

She knew, intellectually, that that feeling, when combined with that chill, didn’t mean that someone was actively watching her that very moment, but that didn’t stop her from whipping around to look for those watching eyes. Even the crashing sound of a plate falling from her suddenly-numb fingers and shattering on the floor couldn’t distract her from the overwhelming feeling that _he_ was nearby.

Hath-Set. Vandal Savage.

Despite their long, uneventful stay in Iowa City, Kendra had known that their time was coming to an end. Or perhaps it was _because_ it was so uneventful. She and her soulmate had only lived to the age of thirty in two different lifetimes before this one: their time in the Old West as Kate and Hannibal, and during the turn of the century as Sheila and Jimmy. At the age of thirty-one, it was only a matter of time before their eternal nemesis caught up to them.

And now he was here. And he was close. _Too_ close.

She never bothered to pick up the pieces of the broken plate, instead choosing to rush for the entryway. Thanks to her husband being born into a wealthy family this time around, their house was the grandest she’d lived in since her life as a live-in servant during the late Victorian Era. And that meant that she would have to go up three floors and a ladder to reach their small stash of their old weapons in the attic.

But there wasn’t enough time to bother with stairs. With the adrenaline flowing through her, it took almost no effort to call her wings forth, and she flew up to the top floor. The halls were a bit too narrow for her wings, and the trapdoor into the attic definitely so, so she retracted them and ran as fast as she could.

Matt’s – Khufu’s – old mace was on the top of the first box she literally ripped open, so it was the first thing she grabbed. There were so many other treasures that they had amassed from their past lives, but she couldn’t take them all; as deeply as it pained her, she was forced to leave them behind.

There was only one way in and out of the attic; she couldn’t stay up there. Her best hope was to get to the balcony on the second-storey (as none of the third-storey windows opened enough for her to fit through them) and fly out of there, get to Matt’s office, and flee with him. She could hear the sound of the front door shattering just as she got to the trapdoor.

He was here.

Kendra clattered down the ladder, despite the fact that her raw instincts were telling her to go in the opposite direction, to get away, _far_ away from Savage, not run in his direction. But she _had_ to move closer in order to reach her only way out.

She was nearly at the bottom when disaster struck.

The second-lowest rung, the one with the crack in it that had had her worried for a while, snapped when her foot came crashing down on it. With a scream, she dropped down to the floor and landed hard. A sharp pain in her ankle told her that _something_ was wrong, but she had to keep going. She didn’t have enough room to fly until she reached the stairs, so she would have to suck it up and run as well as she could manage.

Kendra could hear boots thundering on the stairs, and she hauled herself to her feet. Pushing past the pain – she’d felt worse in her previous 204 lives – she hobbled down the hall as quickly as she could, still keeping a tight grip on the mace that she now needed more than ever.

As soon as she had enough space to do so, Kendra spread her wings and launched herself over the bannister, before diving downward and then pulling into another sharp turn as soon as she cleared the floor/ceiling.

Only to pull up short as soon as she saw her path to freedom blocked by the very man she was trying to escape.

Hatred and terror overtook her at the sight of his face. The last time she’d seen it, he’d put a knife in her husband’s chest and choked the life out of her while her son hid in a closet and was forced to listen as his parents died. She yelled – a primal scream of rage – and swung the mace as hard as she could. He barely even had time to realise she was there before she struck him in the head, and he reeled backwards but didn’t fall down.

Kendra swung again, but this time, the immortal was ready, and he caught the weapon’s shaft with one hand, stopping the second attack in its tracks.

She yelled a second time and tried to yank the mace out of his grip, only for that yell to get cut off by a searing pain in her chest. She looked down and, to her horror, saw the hilt of a _very_ familiar dagger sticking out between her breasts.

Then Savage yanked the blade out, completely ignoring her blood spattering all over his front.

Her entire body went numb, and she found herself falling out of the air and onto the stairs below her. That numbness didn’t last long, as the momentum from her fall sent her tumbling down to the first-floor landing. By the time she rolled to a stop, her head was bleeding, and she was pretty certain that both of her arms were broken.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe; her very first attempt set her chest on fire, and the horribly familiar, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth.

As she lay there in a broken heap and in a pool of her own blood, Vandal Savage slowly strolled down the stairs, and she was lying in just the right position to see his approach.

He had a wide grin on his face as he brandished the Amon Dagger at her. “Do you recall this?” he taunted her, “Of course you do. After all, not only was this the same dagger that began our tragic story, you tried to kill me with it just last month.”

Had he lost his last shred of sanity? “Wha-” she choked, “What?”

He shook his head. “Come now, My Love. You didn’t think I wouldn’t follow you all the way from Harmony Falls, did you?”

“What… the hell… are you… ta- ta- talking… about?!” Every syllable seemed to take twice as much effort as the last. The ever-growing pool of blood told her that her time would be up _very_ soon.

He was leaning over her, now. “I’m grateful that you chose a home that was so… isolated… from your nearest neighbours. There’s no one around to report my entry into your home.”

That had been Kendra’s choice. She remembered the innocents drowned in the Flood, and she remembered the last time her neighbours had been killed for trying to save her and her soulmate. Vandal Savage had no problems with additional casualties. It was why she had insisted on the house with its own expansive grounds on outskirts of the city.

“I can afford to wait until your dear Raymond comes home.”

Raymond? Who was Raymond? She no longer had the strength to speak; it was taking all her effort just to breathe, and blackness was creeping on the edge of her vision.

“And when he sees you here, I’ll give him just enough time to scream before I slit his throat. I won’t tolerate _another_ man taking My Love from me.”

She didn’t understand what she was saying, but it didn’t matter. All she could hope was that Matt would be able to get away, and that it wouldn’t be too long before they met again in the next life.

 _‘I’m sorry,’_ she thought, _‘I will wait across eternity… for my love to come back to me.’_

**Author's Note:**

> In ‘Left Behind’, Sara, Ray, and Kendra leave Harmony Falls, which is in Oregon, and travel to Hub City. In the comics, Hub City is located in Illinois. As Iowa (where these incarnations live) is right next to Illinois on the West side, it is entirely likely that they drove right through Iowa (I even Google Map searched directions to drive between Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois (since Harmony Falls and Hub City are both fictional), and one of the suggested routes went right through Iowa City), so maybe Savage followed them and ran into the 1958 versions of Kendra and Carter instead.
> 
> There was a flashback scene featured in 1x14 ‘River of Time’ that was set in 1941, and those two incarnations of Hawkman and Hawkgirl are the ones in this fic. However, I reject the 1941 date. If I’m assuming that the Hawks don’t get reincarnated in one life until after the last one has ended (in other words: two incarnations don’t exist at the same time unless time-travel’s involved), they would still be sixteen at the oldest, if they died as Joe and Edith Boardman in 1925. Yet in that scene, they’ve been married for at least a year, since she’s annoyed with him for forgetting the anniversary. While teenage marriages may have been legal, they weren’t necessarily common. So, I’m going to assume that that scene should be set later than 1941.
> 
> I am planning on a ‘Long Way Home’ fic that focuses on the Hawks, but it’ll be a long time coming. I’m hoping to cover a bit of what happens to Kendra and Carter after they fly off into the night, but I’ll also be focusing on the sort of thing that the writers should have paid more attention to: the many possibilities a writer can take from 206 past lives. I will be focusing on about a dozen different lives (including the current one), most based on either TV canon or comics canon. This includes Celia Penbrook and Brian Kent (whom I’ve already covered in Chapter 1 of ‘The Darkness that Keeps You Up at Night’), the Boardman’s (whom I’m pretty sure are James and Sheila Wright from the comics), and Nighthawk and Cinnamon. However, while I have a good idea of what I want to do with the past lives, I still need to figure out a decent plot for the present-day stuff, besides relationship development. To do that, I’ll need to do some research for some good, old-fashioned superheroing (villains, other characters, etc.).
> 
> Good news for fans of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ or ‘NCIS’! The next Whumptober entry, hopefully coming out on Tuesday, is the fourth chapter of ‘Emily the Vampire Slayer’. I know it’s been a couple of months since that was updated. After that will be two new Whumptober/Long Way Home fics. One will focus on Winn from ‘Supergirl’ and the other will be about Desmond from ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Season 4.


End file.
